How to Study Gender in International Security? An Introduction to Feminist Security Studies

Abstract

Thinking on war, violence and security has always been associated with concepts of femininity and masculinity. Similarly, wars and political transformations also change the notions of the roles of women and men in society. This article shows how the links between gender identities and threat construction, understanding of aggression, or social sensitivity to different types of victims of violence can be studied academically. It introduces feminist security studies, embeds it in the research of international relations and security, and encourages its development in the Czech academic environment. The article introduces key concepts and methods of studying gender in (international) security, identifies key themes in feminist security research, and explains various approaches and types of questions that can be investigated in this area.

Feminist Security Studies in Europe: Beyond Western Academics’ Club

“…There is limited research produced on gender and conflict from the locations outside of the 'Centers of Excellence.' Yet, there is a reason for optimism; FSS scholars outside of the core produce introductory FSS texts in local languages (Gasztold 2018;Krulišová and Rychnovská 2020) and engage with productive academic conversations with the West. This is the case of the monograph Feminist Perspectives on Terrorism (2020) by a Polish academic Aleksandra Gasztold.…”